Segmentation is all about knowing your audience, and in this post, I’ll show you how to segment your email subscribers so you can send the right marketing campaigns to the right prospects at the right time.

1. Segment your subscribers for higher email engagement

When users opt in to receive your newsletter, they’ve taken the first step towards becoming a customer.

You won’t convert all new subscribers into customers, but you will convert a considerable amount with the right email segmentation strategy.

Segmenting your audience doesn’t necessarily entail long and complex surveys. Rather, it involves asking a simple question such as: What is your primary occupation? How old are you? What are your interests?

But before you start asking questions you need to decide how you want to segment your audience.

What’s the most important information you need from them to send them relevant and high-converting email campaigns?

If you’re selling clothing it could be knowing their gender; if you’re selling sports equipment, you need to know what type of sports they are into, and so on.

The most effective ways to segment your subscribers are:

Demographics

How they opted in for your newsletter

Engagement history

The first two segmentation strategies are key when segmenting new subscribers, while the third strategy is invaluable for retaining subscribers and customers.

Let’s have a look at the first email segmentation strategy for new prospects.

i. How to segment by demographic

Demographics include characteristics such as age, gender, income level, company position, and more.

Of course, you shouldn’t ask your subscribers for all this information at once. What information you ask for depends on the product you’re trying to sell.

E-commerce businesses that sell clothes and shoes would benefit from knowing the gender of their subscribers so they know if they should send offers on dresses or suits for instance.

Intelligent Chance also tries to get additional information by asking about my struggles.

This is especially useful when it comes to email marketing, as solving burning challenges for your audience is the best way to drive sales.

Another example is from AYR who offers a 10% discount on first orders through a popup on their website:

When I signed up to get the discount, I immediately received this email:

They promised me a discount and included a simple CTA linking back to their website so I can make my first purchase and get the discount.

This is a great way to engage new subscribers and convert them into customers—fast (especially if you need to recoup your spends from paid traffic).

There is, however, one disadvantage with discounts:

Offer too many too often, and your subscribers and customers will grow accustomed to them and never pay full price again.

There’s a fine balance when it comes to discounting, and you’re the only one who can figure out what that balance is.

iii. How to segment on engagement history

Engagement history is another vital part of email segmentation.

Looking at how subscribers’ have engaged with your previous campaigns will give you an indicator of how to approach them in the future.

If you send a weekly newsletter, for example, and a user hasn’t engaged with any of your six previous emails, you might need to move them to another email flow where you try to re-engage them.

If you send an email every day, six emails wouldn’t be enough to determine whether a subscriber is inactive as they might just be on vacation.

Next, you need to look at what type of content your subscriber engages with most.

Is it the emails where you offer free shipping; show them your newest arrivals or your flash sales?

Maybe they only engage with you when there’s a chance to win something?

Look at the type of content subscribers act on and create an audience segment based on interest.

Then you can include more of that content in your segmented email campaigns for this specific audience to increase engagement and start pushing for sales related to that content.

Another segment could consist of those subscribers who attended your last event.

Whether this was a physical event, a webinar, an online training session, demo, tutorial, or other, these people have shown a high level of engagement, and you can push harder for a sale than with your other subscribers.

You could send them a limited offer related to the topic of the event.

Again, focus on problem-solving.

What was the purpose of the event and what was the reason people attended?

Did they want to lose weight? Learn about your new computer program? Find new inspiration on how to dress?

2. Segment your customers and drive more sales

Once subscribers have made their first purchase, they can be considered customers.

They may never purchase anything again–but I don’t want that to happen to you.

So let’s take a look at the three best ways to segment your customers to drive more sales.

i. How to segment by interests and preferences

This one’s similar to demographic segmentation, but here you segment by your customers’ interests rather than demographics.

If you get your customers to define their interests (within your area of expertise, of course), you can send highly targeted email campaigns to those segments.

They ask you to add items to your favorites on their website. Then, you get an email when any of your saved items go on sale.

The more items you add to the list, the more likely one or more will go on sale at some point.

The benefit of this type of email marketing is its simplicity. Customers will browse your site and fall in love which specific items—which increases the likelihood they’ll purchase them when they go on sale.

Speaking from personal experience, impatience is a powerful advantage for businesses.

Once I’ve fallen in love with an item, I want to have it—and I want to have it now!

How many times have you gone out after your Birthday and purchased items from your wishlist that you didn’t get?

More than once, right?

The tactic that Chairish uses is basically the same—they get customers to create a wishlist, and increase engagement and eventually sales.

ii. How to segment by cart abandonment

This email is simple and includes the most important elements of a great abandoned cart email.

They’ve included the specific item that I left in my cart which convinces me that this email was sent specifically to me.

They include a soft CTA that tells me to return to my cart instead of a hard CTA such as “Buy Now!” which can, in some cases, scare off potential customers.

Casper knows visitors abandon their carts for different reasons, so instead of assuming users didn’t have the time or the money to finish their purchase, they offer customers to chat with them to answer any questions that might have had about the checkout process.

Having a dialogue will give you valuable insights into why people are abandoning their carts, which can help you make your emails more targeted.

iii. How to segment on location

When customers make their first purchase, they always leave their address, so you know where to send their purchase.

This information is highly valuable to you as you can segment your customers based on location.

If you have brick and mortar stores, you can send segmented emails to the customers who live near one of your stores.

If you don’t have brick and mortar stores, there’s no need to worry; you can still segment on location.

Let’s say you run a travel agency and you’ve segmented your list by customers who live in southern England.

You’ve checked the weather forecast, and it’s going to rain for the next two weeks with temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius.

This is a perfect opportunity to send a targeted offer on an extended weekend in Spain or somewhere else where the weather is much better.

One idea could be to include the weather forecast in the email to show people how bad it’s going to be at their location, and then show them how great the weather will be at the travel destination.

3. Segment repeat customers and create brand advocates

Segmenting customers—especially repeat customers—will not only drive more sales but build stronger relationships with your customers that will last a lifetime.

Okay, so you might not become best friends with your customers, but it doesn’t hurt to be optimistic.

Generating repeat customers is much more cost-efficient than acquiring new customers.

Think about it: You don’t have to spend resources on paid advertising, PR, and so on.

All you need is a well-timed and highly targeted email campaign.

These are the top three segmentation strategies for repeat customers:

Purchase history

Purchase amount

Inactive customers

Mastering these three types of segmentation will get you loyal customers and drive sales through the roof.

What’s not to like?

i. How to segment by purchase history

The one thing every repeat customer has in common is they’ve purchased from you before.

That previous purchase gives you exactly what you need to send a segmented email encouraging another purchase.

Look at your customers’ purchase history to see what type of products they’re interested in, and promote related products in your emails.

They start out with some storytelling leading up to the introduction of their new exclusive product.

The hard CTA “Shop now” is relevant because they know the customers they’re targeting are interested in the newest arrivals because they’ve previously bought their newest items.

Your loyalty program is also a great source for user segmentation.

Whenever a customer has spent a certain amount of money on your site, you can send them an email with a gift or another type of reward.

You can also create a loyalty program where customers collect points every time they make a purchase (the more money spent, the more points). These points can then be used to redeem rewards, discounts, etc.

Time to start segmenting

With the right e-commerce email segmentation strategies you’ll see significant increases in email opens, clicks, purchases, user engagement, and much more, all while saving money.

Acquiring new customers is key in all businesses, but that doesn’t mean your existing customers aren’t just as (if not more) important.

While it might take some time to create your segments and set up the right triggers, email marketing segmentation will save you time and money in the future.

What segments are you using in your email marketing strategy? And what are your experiences? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Rikke Thomsen

Rikke is Head of Email Marketing here at Sleeknote. Her expertise lies in copywriting, content marketing, and email marketing. When she’s not busy wearing down the keys on her keyboard, she loves getting creative in the kitchen, binging on Netflix series, and skiing in the Alps.